A pandemic influenza would mean widespread infection essentially throughout every region of the world.

Even the pandemic flu of 1918 only killed one to two percent of the people who were infected.

Antibiotics are a very serious public health problem for us, and it’s getting worse. Resistant microbes outstrip new antibiotics. It’s an ongoing problem. It’s not like we can fix it, and it’s over. We have...

Is it or is it not ethical to create an embryo, and to create a person for the purpose of getting an organ to give to someone else? Your knee-jerk reaction is ‘absolutely not;’ but...

There’s always the danger when you have influenzas that infect chickens, that when you have the close quarters of chickens spreading from one to another and occasionally a human coming into close contact, that there...

For the first time, we have the genetic sequences of all three of the players in the global malaria debacle: the parasite, the anopheles mosquito and the human. It’s a very important milestone.

Better ways to diagnose, treat and prevent E. coli 0157:H7 infections are badly needed.

I’m a born, cautious optimist.

The most confounding thing of all is that we still haven’t identified the cause of 20% to 30% of adult common colds.

Although it is still important to develop an HIV vaccine, we have significant tools already at our disposal that can make a major impact on the trajectory of this epidemic.

It is now widely recognized that any attempt at malaria eradication must be a long-term commitment that involves multiple interventions, disciplines, strategies and organizations.

I think it would be over-exaggeration to think that there are millions of viruses ready to jump on us and bring us back to the 14th century. That would be looking over a ledge that...

Pneumococcal disease is a real threat. Pneumococcal disease is a bacterial infection that causes anything from middle ear infection to pneumonia to meningitis. Children are particularly vulnerable to it, but adults can get pneumococcal disease...

Bio-terrorism is a threat.

Inevitably, malaria parasites developed resistance to commonly used drugs, and mosquito vectors became insecticide-resistant.

The worst potential bio-terrorist is nature itself.

One of the by-products of being a perfectionist and constantly trying to improve myself are sobering feelings of low-grade anxiety and a nagging sense of inadequacy. But this is not anxiety without a purpose. No,...

The difference between H7N9 and H5N1, is that H5N1 kills chickens very rapidly, so it is easy to identify where the infected flocks of chickens are. H7N9 doesn’t make the chicken sick, so it has...

I think the media can be a very positive influence by essentially holding people to task about the importance of high quality medical care. And when the media is scrutinizing you, then I think that’s...

Whooping cough is not a mild disease. Whooping cough, before the vaccination, could make you very, very sick. First of all, there was a chance you could die from it – small chance, not a...

Certainly the support for research in HIV/AIDS was good in the Clinton administration, good in the Bush administrations. It just was.

The body’s immune system is like any other system of the body. Each of them have their vital function for the human host.

There are a number of candidate vaccines that are in development for HIV/AIDS.

I believe I have a personal responsibility to make a positive impact on society.

The launch of phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is a first step in developing a vaccine that could be licensed and used in the field to protect not only the front line health care workers...

I think, collectively, we should be paying more attention to what is going on around us in the world among people who don’t have the advantages that we have.

An AIDS-free generation would mean that virtually no child is born with HIV; that, as those children grow up, their risk of becoming infected is far lower than it is today; and that those who...

I enjoy very much communication. I think that scientists need to communicate.

It’s the advantage of the virus to spread, and you can only spread when you infect people and they infect other people without necessarily killing them. So if you had 100 percent mortality, the potential...

There are so many different varieties of HIV out there.

Science is telling us that we can do phenomenal things if we put our minds and our resources to it.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is an institute of the National Institutes of Health that is responsible predominantly for basic and clinical research in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of immunologic and...

The discovery of HIV in 1983 and the proof that it was the cause of AIDS in 1984 were the first major scientific breakthroughs that provided a specific target for blood-screening tests and opened the...

Activism has been very productive in our society.

I grew up in an inner city neighborhood called the Benson Hurst section of Brooklyn, which was a very embracing, warm, family-type neighborhood.

Some of the most vulnerable people to getting the SARS virus are health care providers. The general public, walking in the street, there is really not that much risk at all. It’s a very, very...

There cannot be any impediment to science that will ultimately be good to the general public.

Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures.

There is an urgent need for a protective Ebola vaccine, and it is important to establish that a vaccine is safe and spurs the immune system to react in a way necessary to protect against...

The immune system’s goal is to protect the body against invaders either from without, such as microbes, or from within, such as cancers and different types of neoplastic transformation.

Disagreements are one of the fundamental positive aspects of science.

I run a modest-sized laboratory that’s looking specifically at what we call ‘the pathogenic mechanisms of HIV disease, or AIDS.’

I consider myself a perpetual student. You seek and learn every day: from an experiment in the lab, from reading a scientific journal, from taking care of a patient. Because of this, I rarely get...

We can sharply deflect the curve of HIV incidence.

Well I think the media has a very powerful influence on almost anything and everything we do because the general public gets their perception of what is going on in things they don’t have immediate...

The most pressing ethical question is to make sure that everything you do from a scientific standpoint is done for the ultimate good and positive issue for the people that you’re caring about.

The world is a place that is so interconnected that what happens in another part of the world will impact us.

I’m generally considered a conservative in my predictions for disease.

Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with truth – something I learned with a bit of tough love from my Jesuit education first at Regis High School in New York City and then at Holy Cross College in...

We need to know more about how group A strep interact with humans to cause so many different illnesses.